Andy
Hirst from the age of 10 has been passionately
interested in birds, which has developed in to a full-time hobby
and profession. For the past 38 years he has watched birds throughout
the length and breadth of the UK and further afield. Although more
recently most of his birding is close to home, surveying, filming
and birding in SK58 (a 10km square between Sheffield, Rotherham
and Worksop).

He
was the youngest ever Young Ornithologists Club (YOC) leader and
ran a very successful group in Sheffield for seven years. In the
mid 1980's he was active in protecting Goshawks in the Peak
District, as well as assisting RSPB staff with the development,
trials & installation of nest intruder detection equipment.
He also spent a summer season as a Species Protection Warden for
the National Trust, providing 24 hour cover on (then) rare nesting
Peregrines in the Peak District.

In
1992 Andy was cofounder of the very successful SK58 Birders,
a local bird group covering a 10km x 10km square (SK58) between
Sheffield, Rotherham and Worksop. SK58
Birders. During this time Andy has served as Chairman and
Treasurer. He has been Recorder for the past 18 years and contributor,
writer, co-editor and editor of the multi- award winning annual
bird report "The Birds of SK58 ...".
He has also successfully developed the video production side of
SK58 Birders. He instigated the SK58 Birders website, which is frequently
updated.

In
1994 Andy became the first employee of the newly formed BirdGuides
Ltd in Sheffield. A multimedia and video production company
producing multimedia products for birdwatchers. During his 17 years
with the company he served as Office Manager and Production Manager.
He was responsible for bolting the various CD/ DVD products together,
as well as filming, editing and archiving video footage and sound
recordings using Final Cut Pro v1.0 & v5.0 and Cool
Edit, on footage and sounds captured on Hi8 and latterly
DV/ HDV with experience of Digi-Beta &
35mm film formats. All this as well as sales fulfillment,
Thanks to BirdGuides he's travelled to the Middle East, Canada
and the United States and throughout the UK filming/ editing &
archiving footage of birds for the BirdGuides library. Andy setup
his own enterprise, under the name Gone Birding in 2003.
Putting his skills and experience to good use in the commercial
birding/ wildlife production scene. Developing/ leading small group
tours within the UK and overseas, something he had successfully
done for friends and local groups for over 25 years. He also puts
his filming and editing skills to good use freelance. Despite all
of these distractions' he still gets out birding in his favoured
SK58 and further afield. When not at work Andy splits his
time between SK58 Birders and Gone Birding. As well
as filming & editing for SK58 Birders & Gone Birding.
He is still Group Recorder and very much a driving force within
SK58 Birders.

Andy
was made redundant from BirdGuides at the end of March 2011. He
went self employed 3 days later, using his skills and experience
from more than 30 years in the birding scene, plus his professional
skills from a wide experience base. Currently Andy is taking on
contract bird survey work and is putting in many hours surveying
sites in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and further afield, using BBS/
CBC methods, as well as Vantage Point counts. In 2016 Andy began
work for the Peak District Park Authority, so hopes to explore the
Peak District more, splitting his time between home, Bakewell and
Chesterfield.

A
developing project for Gone Birding & Andy is to build
up a film archive of UK & European birds. Over time this will
be a great resource covering many species in all plumage's as well
as capturing behaviour, something we can do with our knowledge of
birds, locations and behaviour. A monumental task but undaunted,
a project Andy is particularly looking forward to. We have a 300mm
lens to capture the action and will have a camera specifically for
the task. We continue to film, develop and produce products for
mobile devices, so we'll be out with our video camera, editing the
results and hopefully getting in some local birding within SK58-
watch this space!